Samrc

paaarty! (alternate option: running from the hurricane) -Samantha

OK... I wasn't scared with Charley or Frances... But this one honestly has me quaking. I read the 11 am stats and this storm is so frightening. I don't have any way to protect my windows and I have a street lined with HUGE branches (some larger than some of my trees) and other debris. I am in an area that flooding IS NOT an issue, but old full sized oaks, cherry laurels and PINES are everywhere. So much for Ivan to throw around and knock down. Then of course you get the tornados in the spin off storms... There are so many areas of the state that are devastated and just can't handle another storm, let alone the strongest of all, a category 5 with wind gusts up to 195MPH. For the folks in the Keys... please take care. I know there's only one way in and out. Evacuation of that area will take days. BAD IVAN. GO AWAY! BAD STORM! -Samantha

44 my age later this year.....

away (from Ivan the terrible!) -Samantha

Good gracious! Ivan just became a category 5 storm and now has a storm track to Florida. This time, it is possible that the Keys and South Florida will be hit. Begging people to pray and mentally push this thing out to open waters. IVAN GO AWAY!!! Florida is SOGGY after Charley and Frances and can not afford another huge storm so soon. -Samantha

39 and holding....... -Samantha

The folks I assist: 1) Don't want to learn more than emails and casual surfing, and the majority of those still can't put an ATTACHMENT on an email. And those still using AOL browser/email still have problems FINDING the attachment. 2) Are thrilled to learn about GOOGLE (You mean it can find all that so easily???) 3) Don't care HOW things work, just that they do. Don't care to learn terminology, what does that benefit them? They don't want to THINK when using a computer. They want to play. 4) Waited to get a computer until they did most of the work for you (these people would have been LOST with a dot prompt on DOS systems!) 5) Get glassy eyed if you try to explain something for more than 2 minutes. Teach ONE thing then go away. More than that is lost. 6) Want a computer with shortcuts on the desktop to the solitare or freecell game. 7) Would never consider opening the cabinet to look inside for fear of damaging the computer. 8) Are sure they don't need protection for viruses because they only open emails from friends and family. They know the source so it is safe. 9) Wouldn't know what a file extension is so telling them not to open .exe files means nothing. 10) Are average computer users. Some work on a pc at work and don't want to learn any other program... It's not laziness or stupidity, or brainless...it's LACK OF INTEREST. Totally different. Some of the most intelligent people I know can't run a copier (just press the green button dummy!) and barely can turn on a PC. IE fits the bill for the majority of the these internet users not because it is the BEST browser, but because it does not ask you to THINK about what you are doing. It is familiar and there is security in familiar. Those of us that build sites and/or use computers for a living in some other capacity expect to learn new programs, new ways of doing things, and are often eager to approach beta testing on a favorite program that has a new version. It's a different mindset. You can not measure the average folks I assist with people that find the technical side of computers interesting. There's a different set of expectations for the computer and the browser. I have come to accept that sometimes it is better to accept the difference than to try to bridge the gap. Little nudges are accepted (learning there is a right button on the mouse and it brings up neat menus) but not big changes like changing to a new browser I say the best option for these folks is to tighten up IE so it is more secure and let them continue the way they always have. For the rest of us, give us other options that fit our needs/wants better. Yup. Curtis you have that EXACTLY right! -Samantha

Slick. Easy updating! Same idea as the copyright dating so that one change updates all pages at one time. A dream come true! -Samantha

HUH??? Are you meaning a PHP statement that appears on all pages, like a copyright notice or something? TCH-Don gave me an idea for that and I am in the process of updating a site with that so it is easier to update in the future. Right now I still have 350+ pages (Have to update several separate subdirectories and will put it in the page format to force a global change for that subdirectory I hope!) Could you show me what you plan on implementing for your footer? -Samantha

Bruce, you are so right. The more I learn the more I realize I need to learn! I get comfortable with one way and sure enough, someone comes out with something better, faster, safer and I learn something else. The only constant in web building: You will never be done with the site! There are so many ways to accomplish the same task that it can make your mind spin. This board is an EXCELLENT way to discover new and exciting options! -Samantha

And I think it was VERY nice that you both took your time to assist and give the link code as requested! Thumbs Up Personal opinion here: I think it's better to start with an understanding of what the simple choice for code could be then work up to complicated alternative options like building a special form using a 3rd party code. I have one client that refuses to use ANY protection on his email...He says he has had it posted so many years that it doesn't matter anymore. Go ahead and use a plain-ole mailto: link because it will not cut down on the spam to disguise or hide it! -Samantha

Thank you for the kind words about my site. You can use a standard email link as directed by TCH-Raul, but I STRONGLY recommend you go one step further to disguise your email address in the link. Leaving a standard email link on the web page is an invitation to EVERYONE to get that address. There are lots of different ways to do that. Just a few are shown here: http://www.samisite.com/test-csb2nf/id129.htm Consider the email encoder to translate your address. Just place the address in the code like this (with no spaces in the code): <div><a href="mailto:]& #117; & #115; & #101; & #114; & #064; & #100; & #111; & #109; & #097; & #105; & #110; & #046; & #099; & #111; & #109; " title="Contact Me" onfocus="this.blur()" target="_top"><center>Contact Me</center></a></div> On the encoder page is a link to other kinds of encoding to help limit the email address spiders. I agree that the best option is to build a form that hides your address completely from those spiders. I have used PHORMJr to create forms with hidden email addresses and it is also a free third party code. TCH-Don (aka Turtle) wrote some instructions for the use of it and it does work well with CSB if you are interested in another option. I can send you to our protected order form (limited customer base is allowed access) so you can try it out. Just send me an email if interested and I will assign you a temporary password to have access to it. Instructions for it are here: http://csb.thepetscorner.com/form.htm -Samantha

You might also try a few sites I have used: www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml Some are free public domain images, and many look like they should be in national geographic! (For example, take a look a the Yellowstone section: www.nps.gov/yell/press/images/) h**p://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/ h**p://www.freeimages.co.uk/ Corel software (like the office suites) also comes with stock photos. -Samantha

I've played 5 games...caught 23 with only 7 left.... can't get all 30! Addictive game. -Samantha

Frances has still not entered the gulf. She is still taking her time just spinning off lots of gusts and rain and will continue to do so for several more hours yet before she heads to the panhandle. So much for excitement on my vacation!!! Sleep well tonight folks for the cleanup begins tomorrow. EDITED: well, not exactly.... We are STILL under rain storms for all of Monday so the cleanup begins on Tuesday! This has been one big whopper of a weather cell. -Samantha

Jim you are so correct. After Charlie came through they were warning people without power to shut down almost all breakers in the house so when the power comes on, there wouldn't be a major surge. There was a home that survived the hurricane but burnt down because of power surge/wiring. Stay safe and lets all pray hope and wish that IVAN, the next storm, just deteriorates or wanders away from land!!! -Samantha

Thomas... Most years Florida gets one hit, somewhere. Usually a cat 1 with lots of rain and not a lot of damage. Our water comes from natural underground sources and we need the hurricanes to replenish the aquafer. But this is a first to have three storms (Bonnie, Charlie and Frances) within 3 weeks and a possibility of a fourth next week (Ivan). Central Florida is not usually involved. We have been bypassed for MANY years. Unfortunately this has been our year. Frances is still onland, near Lakeland, in central Florida, heading off towards the coast. In my area, my neighbor has major roof damage and limbs down. I have tons of limbs down in my yard (mostly from my neighbor's trees). My street is blocked- a large tree is across the road. I still have power unlike have the people in the path of the storm!! Amazingly, my mother's house is NORTH of the path (in Ocala) and yet she lost power at 11am this morning, and her screenroom roof keeps flapping with gust of wind. The power lines going into her house are laying on the ground so even when her street goes live, she won't until an electrician reconnects her. She has a few trees down in back too. Winter Park area has even more trees down and 17 water mains are broken. Many parts of central Florida with city water have BOIL WATER orders due to contaminations. And others have no water at all because pumping stations are without power. Coastal counties (Brevard, Indian River, Volusia) and central counties (Osceola,and Polk counties) have the worst damages and power outages. Though Frances has past our area, she is still causing rain and will do so for several more hours in our area. We are still under tornado watches. She has been slow and deadly and the folks in the panhandle need to be ready for her! Once she gets to the gulf she might strengthen again. Thank goodness I have tomorrow to try to clear my backyard of debris. I am so thankful to have come through this nasty business in such great shape. (So glad I had pine trees taken out last year!!!) I hope the company I work for is in good shape too. There's no traffic lights working in many areas of many cities. We have no GAS for autos ANYWHERE. It will take a few days to get the stations fully stocked again. But since we just went through Charley, repair crews were already in-instate so power, cable, telephone, etc will be addressed quickly. OK... Back to the shallow and unimportant stuff.... For days, our television has been SOLELY taken up with the hurricane reporting. No broadcast shows for CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, PBS. I guess I will have to go check in on the BIG BROTHER website to find out what is happening on that show.... -Samantha

Frances is FINALLY moving across the state. I am so glad. Frances pounded the coast for hours before coming ashore. At least with it moving those folks will finally be able to get out from under it. A friend of my mother's in west palm beach has broken windows from palm fronds, roof damage and his ceiling is threatening to drop in from the weight of the water on it. My aunt and uncle are in west palm -they boarded up, and hunkered down instead of leaving. Frank didn't think it neceesary to get batteries or extra water. They lost power and phones early evening yesterday so we have not heard from them since. We have had a few feeder bands with some gusting, but the worst will be here later today. We are enjoying the temporary break in the rain bands that surround the hurricane eye. We lost power three times, but it's back on again. My Spaz cat is out to eat and will shortly disappear back under my daybed. Poor thing is the bravest cat for anything but storms. We will have hours of heavy thunderstorms and steady winds with strong gusts Yuck! but no where near what the folks on the coast went through. I can hear it start to pickup again so need to get offline. Signing off till after the storm passes. -Samantha

They are reporting that more than 84,000 people are already without power. And the stalled storm hasn't even come ashore yet! Jim, besides the lower part of the state, Brevard, Volusia and Indian River counties are being pounded. Brevard and Volusia are having tornados from the feeder bands. Indian River county has been without power for hours and our local stations are reporting the water pumping stations are shutting down as of 9pm tonight for that area. There are tons of people without roofs or only partial repairs due to Charley and Frances will be heading over some of the same already devastated counties. I hope your friend was able to get the patch in place for his mother's home so no further damage is done! My local channel 6 just reported that IVAN is another named storm coming towards us... if it stays on the track it's on now, and retains the same speed, IVAN will be in the islands on Wednesday and we could be facing this same crap next weekend all over again!!! His annoucement was followed by groans from his fellow anchors and a plea to not talk about it until this storm is done. GET BACK IVAN! You are NOT welcome here any more than Frances! Frances has taken so long to make landfall that my ice has half melted. By the time she arrives I won't have any left to keep my food chilled! Yuck! I filled some zip lock bags with water and freezing them. My friend a few blocks away called to compare stories and preparations. Steve..... get ready......it's a nasty one and will take longer to get there than expected. I HATE HURRICANES. I hate the waiting...the unknown.... the tree limbs that drop from the sky....the mess in my garage from all the outside stuff brought in, the storm center in my dining area of batteries, candles, flashlights, and stuff... Still dry and going stir crazy in central Florida but thankful to be in one piece, -Samantha

I shut down my big pc hours ago but decided to power up the office laptop for a while.. Yes. Orlando's airport closed yesterday - we expected the storm here this morning, but instead it sat in the Gulf Stream and drank up more water for hours today, not moving at all. The coast is being battered but those of us in the center of the state are just in a state of wait... I wish it would just get it over with already. We have had rain bands with some strong gusts (strong enough to knock loose/broken branches out of the trees), but then it clears out again. I had to go out and drag a 15ft limb from my neighbor's oak tree clear of my driveway. Charlie had broken it, and Fance knocked it down. He has more...hopefully they will not hit my roof when they come down tonight or tomorrow.... -Samantha

When we were leaving the Keys a day ago airports were being closed for all of south Florida until the storm passes them. You can see the current status by clicking the AIRPORT DELAYS link in the gray box on left side of the screen: www.local10.com/news/3702375/detail.html (This website is for a local tv station in Miami) I hope your friend is able to get out on time. -Samantha

Thomas... For you, here's an update: The hurricane has been downgraded from a cat 4 to a strong cat 2 (stilll more than 100MPH/161km per hour winds). The storm has been slowing down as it has been battering the Bahamas but it is picking up more warm water which could strengthen it again to a cat 3... The outer bands are starting to come on land. The storm is the size of the state of TEXAS and the hurricane force winds are 105 miles out from the center of the storm (210 miles/338.1 km wide for the worst winds - that's HUGE!). Then the Tropical storm winds extend another 100 miles/161km or so.... Because it is SO wide, the WHOLE STATE could be affected by the storm! They still do not know where it will come on land. It has been wobbled back and forth so many times.... Storm is still offshore as seen in the image I posted. Charley (the hurricane 3 weeks ago) was extremely fast moving. The winds did major damage but had very little rain. Frances is very different. Besides the horrendous winds, she is moving so slowly, and will dump huge amounts of water, and probably spawn more tornados. This storm is likely to end up back in the GULF and hit even more folks in the panhandle of the state. Looks like Polk county in central Florida (badly hit by Charley) will be a major target again. Many of those folks don't have roofs anymore. My prayers go out to them. The current track has the storm going below Orlando. We will be on the EAST/NORTH side of the storm (the dirty side). The weather in Orlando is beautiful right now. If I didn't have the computer and the tv/radio, I would never know there's a storm coming. Nothing to do but wait. The storm will not make it to our area until early tomorrow morning. -Samantha

WS_FTP here. Been using it for YEARS. Also have Core FTP Lite but usually stay with my old trusty WS_FTP. It works. It's easy. It's the first program I ever used to FTP files so I get around in it the fastest. -Samantha

CSB is lacking for CSS support. It was designed pre-css and still uses html 4 coding for bolding, underlining, etc. If CSS is most important than I say do not start with CSB...Go to a different program. That's unfortunate. I think it would be a greate upgrade to CSB! I agree wholeheartedly with Jim. Many of us work with multiple programs and don't stick to only one to create/maintain sites. Though I work with CSB a lot, I also have a couple very nice HTML editors so I can work directly with the HTML of some of my pages. (Note that you do not want to hand modify the code generated by CSB because the next time you publish with CSB all your changes will be overwritten). I am a code dabbler... prefer not to hand code, but will when I need to do it. For example, I have a specialized order form for one of my sites that requires hand coding to update it more quickly. I made it match the CSB generated pages in formatting, but the code for the pricing and quantities would have been a MESS if I had to update it in CSB. -Samantha

Jim, we stay in Marathon (actually on Knight's Key) each year, just at the 7 mile bridge. One day of the week is set aside to visit Key West. I am very disappointed that we didn't make it all the way down this year. We lost several days to the storm. Some of the folks from our building were heading down, but we didn't have that luxury since our homes are in the projected path. Hope you folks continue to miss these things. At least we have an easier time getting supplies. If one of the bridges connecting the keys went, it would be difficult to get help to you! Enjoy your lovely weather. I have nothing else to do to prepare. Don't have storm shutters or plywood so I've done everything I can do....just waiting...eventually I will have to disconnect the pc, but until then, I can play! -Samantha